CLUB NUMBER FIVE (Immortal Blood) (10 page)

The moment stretched. I sensed Dane's pulse. His heart beat steadily, invitingly, and my eyes wandered to his lips. He involuntarily opened his mouth slightly. I took a deep breath and concentrated my thoughts on anything but h
im. Anything that made my brain
forget what I could do with him if only I gave in. I managed all right and it didn't make him happy. I saw the anger coming back to his face and swallowed.

“You have a problem with that?”

“Do I have a problem with that?” He almost choked in his words.

I nodded and put some lipstick on. He grabbed the stick out of my hand and threw it on the floor. “Are you insane? You can't go there. It's dangerous.”

“For me or for you?” I asked.

I knew I was being annoying but I couldn't stop myself. I wanted to go out, and since I didn't know any other vampire clubs, I was going to the one I did know. So what if Dane didn't want me to go? He wasn't my guardian or anything, and besides, I'd been there more than twice and nothing had ever happened. Okay, I didn't know what went on inside the
C
lub, but so far, all the people, or should I say vampires, I'd seen coming and going had seemed pretty harmless.

“How slow do you want me to spell it for you; it's d-a-n-g-e-r-o-u-s.”
H
e stared at me.

“And I am a v-a-m-p-i-r-e,” I mimicked him.

He
growled
angri
ly and lifted my make-up desk with one hand. All my stuff dropped on
to
the floor. I looked at him and shook my head disapprovingly. He showed me his fangs and kicked the desk. “A vampire who barely got her fangs.”

“Well, you made me like this,” I challenged him lazily. “So try to deal with it or leave me alone.”

He smashed my desk lamp to the wall. I couldn't help but flinch. He was really pissed and I didn't know how to handle a mad vampire. Okay, maybe I did, but I wasn't ready to give in to him, so I stared at him with the same look my mother gave me when I got cranky. “Are you finished, or are you going to break some other stuff before we go?”

He stared at me and I was afraid he might strangle me right there. I could easily see the vein in his forehead pulsating. His fists were clenched and he looked like he was in a lot of pain. And maybe he was. A pissed boy would probably have grabbed me by my shoulders and shaken
the pure sense back to my brain
, but a pissed vampire might easily tear me into a zillion pieces. But as my mom always said, finish the job you begin or don't start it at all.

I steeled my nerves and faced him like nothing had happened, as if it were perfectly normal to sit in a room with flying objects being thrown by a raging vampire. I gave him a sugarcoated smile. He gritted his teeth and I slowly got up.

“I'm not going to rot inside for all of my eternal life. Especially when there's so much I want to know and things I need to learn. I want to go out and have fun. Meet the other vampires and start living my new life, but I don't mind the company. So…” I looked innocently at him. “Are you coming?”

“No, but neither are you.” He let out a long breath and moved to the window. “I'll chain you in if I have to, but you're not going anywhere.”

I glanced at him slyly and stretched my long, tanned legs. A glimpse of my red high heels and he almost drooled. I walked to him, swaying my hips like a dancer. He swallowed as I leaned closer and whispered, “If you're not coming, I'll call Jonathan.”

He looked as if I'd slapped him and I almost felt sorry for him, but there was no way I'd stay home. “Move,” I breathed quietly.

“No.”

I put my freshly manicured screaming-red nail on his chest. “Move.”

He drooled! Oh, this could've been so fun, but I really wanted to go and he was the only obstacle between me and my freedom. I clenched my teeth and hissed at him, but nothing I did made him move. So technically what happened wasn't my fault. You could actually say he drove me to do it.

I leaned even closer and kissed him. A huge mistake. If I'd been able to resist him before, I wasn't anymore. His eyes narrowed like a hunting animal and he growled dangerously. Before I could blink I found myself under his body and on my bed. His lips were hungry and all I could think of was yes. Yes, yes, yes. I twined my body around his and kissed him like crazy. His tongue was hot when it slid into my mouth and met mine. His talented hands searched me and made me scream with pleasure. I ripped his tee
shirt
into thousands of pieces and was about to rip my dress off when he grabbed my wrists and pulled my hands over my head. He started to slow his kisses and it felt so unbelievable good I found myself begging him to go on. He whispered softly in my ear and I moaned quietly. I had absolutely no
idea what he had said. My brain
had stopped working. But I didn't care. Not if he kept doing whatever magic he was doing to me. So I softly whispered, “Yes.”

He lifted his head immediately and grinned. “What did you say?”

“Yes.” I arched my body and hoped he would go on.

I couldn't get my eyes off his washboard abs and his narrow hips and I wished he would free my hands so I could rip the rest of his clothes off
, but that was not his plan. Oh
no, that wasn't his plan at all.

“That's right,” he said softly and dragged his finger slowly from my neck to my belly. “I'm glad we have an agreement.”

“What?” My eyes flew open.

I didn't understand what he meant and why he had stopped, but when I looked into his laughing eyes I blushed hard. Somehow he had tricked me. He had used my deceitful body against me and won. And I didn't have a clue on what terms.

“Dane?” I whispered and tried to save at least some of my dignity. “What kind of a deal have we made exactly?”

He laughed and shook his head. “I tell you what, because you agreed to stay home, I'll let you ask me questions.”

“And you'll answer?” I stared at him suspiciously.

“If we don't end up doing something better.” He looked at me questioningly.

“Never!” I snapped.

“Okay, then.” He dug some bottles of blood out of his bag and gave me one. “Shoot.”

I bit my lower lip. Where should I start? I could never be sure about Dane, and yes, he had agreed to answer my questions, but he was
also
famous for his mysterious disappearing tricks, so I knew I only had a limited amount of time. He leaned on the headboard and eyed me expectantly.

Right, I sighed, and licked my lips. “Why did you change me?”

He looked surprised and a bit ashamed. I crawled closer.

“Why?” I asked again.

“I don't know.” He shrugged.

I growled. If this was his way of answering me, I might as well try to escape. I got up slowly, never moving my eyes from his, and backed up slowly to the window. He got up, too, and I knew he could stop me in no time.

“Another question,” he asked, and his eyes looked so vulnerable I decided to have a little mercy on him.

“Have you done that before?”

“No,” he answered, and I could tell he was telling the truth.

“Why not?”

“Because we're not allowed to change more than one person and I didn't feel like it before.” He moved between me and the window.

Wow, I kind of felt honored and Jonathan's words popped into my mind: he loves you. I walked to the bed and sat on it like a sleepwalker. Why would a guy like Dane love me? I'd done nothing to deserve that. And if that were true, what would I do about it? I stared at my hands and a question tried to come out, but I didn't know how to ask it. I mean, how do you ask a guy if he loves you?

“Sam?” Dane whispered. “Are you all right?”

I nodded slowly and he took a chair to come sit in fr
ont of me. I glanced at him. Oh
God! I couldn't do that. I couldn't ask the love question because I wasn't ready to hear his answer.

“Where do you get the blood?” I asked instead. Coward, my inner voice screamed. But I wiped it away. A girl should know where to eat, right? And food was at least as important as love.

“Here and there,” Dane smiled, relieved. And I was sure he had been prepared for my love question. “We have contacts at the Red Cross, but we also have some willing donators who prefer teeth on skin rather than a needle.”

“Really?” My eyes widened.

“Why not?” Dane shrugged. “Your friend donated willingly; why couldn't there be others like her?”

“Yeah, but she did it for me.”

Dane
rais
ed
an
eyebrow. Okay, I didn't want to know more. How stupid of me. Of course there were willing donators. He probably had dozens of them. I felt a twinge of jealousy in my heart and didn't want to think of Dane sinking his teeth into s
ome willing human girl. And yet
I couldn't help but ask, “Where did you get these bottles?”

“From the
C
lub.”

“About that,” I began, but he shushed me.

“Someone's coming,” he whispered and jumped next to me.

I sharpened my ear and heard it, too. Someone was definitely sneaking under my window.

“Damn, they were quick,” Dane cursed and grabbed the blood bag. “We need to get out of here.”

“Dane, who's there?” I asked, frozen.

“The hunters,”
he replied
and started to drag me to the door. “I thought we had more time, but they can smell a newbie from afar.”

“Right,” I nodded and followed him.

This was the first time I had heard about them, but somehow I knew that these hunters, whoever they might be, would be way worse than my dad, whom we had to bypass before getting out of the house. And that they'd do a lot more than yell if they found us. So much more that I didn't want to know any details, but somehow I guessed it might involve a nice little barbecue where we'd be the prime ribs.

Dane was like a predatory panther as he led me downstairs and to the door. I glanced at my dad, who was watching TV
,
perfectly unaware of what was happening around him. I was sure that he would hear us, but he didn't turn his eyes away from the screen, not even when we passed the couch and almost
knocked off
the magazine lying on the edge of it. I glanced at Da
ne and he shrugged as if to say,
“What? Didn't you know we can move like shadows?”

H
e opened the door silently and we slipped out. I heard muffled voices and pressed myself closer to the wall.

“Humans. Always so predictable,” I heard Dane whisper. I could almost imagine the sour expression on his face.

We stood there for a moment, and when the only sound around us was the gra
ssh
oppers chirping
,
I let myself breathe again. We walked to the street, but didn't let our guard down for a second. A million questions went round and round in my mind, but I was too afraid to talk. Finally, we saw a small, private park and, without any effort, Dane jumped over the high stone wall. I shrugged and followed.

He sat on a bench and grinned. “Okay, shoot.”

“Hunters? Seriously? I thought this was the 21
st
century, not the Middle Ages.” I sat next to him and bur
ied my face in my hands. “Oh
God. This is all too much.”

H
e put his arm around me and pulled me closer. Immediately, I felt his warmth and the familiar tingle in my body, but at least I managed to stay calm instead of jumping all over him.

“Is this okay?” Dane hesitated.

I nodded and felt his body relax. I could do this. I could be in his arms like it was totally normal for me. Like I didn't feel the quiet pull inside of me that urged me to surrender to him. I raked my hair roughly and shivered. “Who were they?”

“I told you; hunters,”
h
e said quietly. “I never thought they'd find you this soon, though.”

“What do you mean?” I shook his hand away. “Did you know they would come? You did, didn't you? But why? And how can you be sure they were looking for me?” My voice rose dangerously.

Dane looked at me sourly. I huffed and put my arms around my body. I couldn't get the shivering to stop. And no matter how hard I tried to think reasonably, I couldn't. Thoughts were flying
around
my mind and my brain refused to believe that someone was actually hunting me. And for what? What if they caught me; would they just kill me like cold-blooded murderers? Burn me alive? I opened my mouth but couldn't ask Dane those questions, as I knew the answer was yes and yes. They would murder me, maybe by first paralyzing me with something, and then burn me without a blink of an eye.

“Dane...” I began, but he shook his head and I shut up.

“Sam, you have to believe that I didn't want anything like this to happen to you. I thought I could protect you, but obviously I was wrong.”
H
e grinned, and I saw a dangerous glimpse in his eyes before he could hide it. “But I can assure you, you are safe now. I won't let anything bad happen to you.”